28/12/2017, Several days of protest
began in Tehran in anti-government protests, angered by a poorly-performing
economy.

31/5/2017, A powerful car bomb
exploded in Kabul, killing 90 and injuring a further 460.

21/8/2015, Britain and Iran re-opened their
embassies in each other’s capitals. This followed a nuclear agreement between
Iran and the USA
organised by US
President Obama (but not yet ratified by US Congress).

14/7/2015, Iran and the West reached
a nuclear deal.

24/11/2013, Iran and the US reached a
deal on Iran’s nuclear programme and sanctions on Iran.

7/9/2012, Canada cut diplomatic ties with Iran,
over Iran’s support for Syrian Government nuclear plans and human rights abuses.

9/2/2012, Iran suspended oil exports
to Britain and France in retaliation for sanctions imposed by
the EU in January 2012.

23/1/2012, The EU imposed sanctions
on Iran because of continued Iranian enrichment of uranium.

14/5/2011, Pakistan officially
condemned the US raid in which Osama Bin Laden was killed.

1/5/2011, The
US announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in an military
operation in Pakistan

11/4/2006, Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
announced that his country has “joined the club of nuclear countries”.

26/10/2005, The Iranian President, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejab, called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ at a ‘World
without Zionism’ conference in Tehran.

5/5/2002.Reports
from Afghanistan suggested the Taleban
were regrouping in mountain hideouts, waiting for the Afghan government to
falter.

22/12/2001, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as head of the interim government in
Afghanistan.

6/12/2001. Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, surrendered Kandahar; but
Osama Bin Laden had still not been found.

26/11/2001. Kunduz, last Taleban stronghold
in northern Afghanistan, fell to the Northern Alliance.

13/11/2001. The capital of Afghanistan, Kabul,
fell to the Northern Alliance,
captured from the Taleban. Despite American stipulations that a government of
all Afghans should rule, the Alliance seemed in sole control.

11/11/2001. Northern Alliance forces now controlled large areas of northern Afghanistan,
including the western town of Herat.

9/11/2001.Northern Alliance forces fighting the Taleban
in Afghanistan were reported to have captured the town of Mazar-E-Sharif. This
opened up a land route and airfield to bring in supplies to fight the Taleban on the northern front.

9/10/2001.The first daylight raids began by the USA on Afghanistan against the Taliban and Bin Laden’s supporters. This was
America’s ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’.

7/10/2001. Following the September 11, 2001 attack on the USA, missile attacks
began on Afghanistan, prior to US invasion.
President
George Bush announced the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, to root out Al Quaeda.

10/4/1993. Iran said income from tourism rose by 50% over the past year.

14/2/1993. Iran again called on Britain to hand over Salman Rushdie,
sentenced to death by Ayatollah Khomeini on 14/2/1989 for his book The
Satanic Verses.

2/11/1992. Iran increased the reward for killing Salman Rushdie.

7/9/1992.The first hanging in over 20 years took place in Afghanistan, with around 3,000
spectators.

28/7/1992.Afghanistan banned women, even wearing veils, from
being seen on TV.

12/9/1990. In Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei denounced the presence of
US troops in Saudi Arabia. He called the struggle against the US a ‘holy war’.

6/6/1989, There was hysteria at the funeral of Ayatollah Khomenei in Tehran.

5/6/1990, Iran demanded that Britain hand over Salman Rushdie
to British Muslims.

3/6/1989. Death of the Ayatollah Khomeini, religious leader of Iran.
Born in 1900, Khomeini
attended several Islamic schools before moving to the city of Soq in 1922 where
he became a Shiite scholar. Khomeini’s spite against Western influences
and his advocacy of Islamic purity won him many followers and in the 1950s he
was acclaimed as an Ayatollah, or major religious leader. Thrown out of Iran in
1964 he continued his fight against the Shah in exile. In 1979 his influence
caused massive riots in Tehran, forcing the departure of the Shah. Unpopular in
the West, Khomeini is mainly remembered for reinstating Islamic punishments and
for a long and exhausting war with Iraq.

14/2/1989.Ayatollah Khomeini
issued a ‘fatwa’ ordering Muslims to kill Salman
Rushdie. Rushdie had published the ‘Satanic Verses’
which angered Muslims worldwide. On 7/3/1989 Iran severed relations with the
UK.

12/2/1989,12 people died in riots in Pakistan over Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic
Verses’.

2/2/1989.The last Soviet
soldier left Afghanistan, ending 9
years of bitter war against the Mujaheddin
rebels. 120,000 Soviet soldiers marched north along the Salang Highway, leaving behind much armament. These rebels then
marched on Kabul and Jalabad and threatened President Najibulah. Najibulah
imposed martial law as Mujaheddin rockets fell on Kabul.

14/1/1989.British Muslims held public burnings of Salman
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

8/11/1988.Salman Rushdie won the Whitbread Prize for his
book, The Satanic Verses.

3/7/1988.The US cruiser Vincennes mistakenly shot down an
Iranian airliner, killing 286 people on a flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai.
The US believed the aircraft was a fighter plane.

15/5/1988.Soviet troops began leaving
Afghanistan. On 15/4/1988 Mr Eduard
Shevardnaze, the Soviet Foreign Minister set the seal on the
Kremlin’s decision to withdraw more than 100,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan,
after 8 ½ years of occupation. Some 155,000 troops would be withdrawn by
15/5/1988, and the remainder, as many troops as this again, would go by
15/2/1989. But Washington said it would continue to supply arms to the
Mujaheddin who were fighting the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. During the Soviet
occupation, up to one million Afghans were said to have been killed and over a
third of the population had fled.

18/4/1988. The USA retaliated against Iran for its mining of
the Gulf. After warning the Iranians to evacuate, US warships destroyed Iranian
oil platforms at Sirri and Sisan. Iranian boats fired back and were sunk by the
US.

14/4/1988,In the
Geneva Agreement, the USSR agreed to withdraw its forces from
Afghanistan.

28/6/1981. In Tehran, a bomb attack killed Ayatollah
Beheshti, the Chief Justice and Head of the Islamic Republican
Party, also four other Government Ministers.

21/1/1981.The US
hostages in Iran were released. 50 men and 2 women were flown out of Iran
after 444 days in captivity.The US had
agreed to freeze the assets of the deposed Shah, end trade sanctions, and
unfreeze Iranian assets in the USA.The
hostages were flown to Algiers, then to Wiesbaden, Germany, to be greeted by
Ex-President Carter.
Ths hostage crisis began when the US allowed the ailing Shah of Iran to enter
for medical treatment.

31/10/1980, The eldest son of the late Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza
Shah, proclaimed himself as the rightful heir to the Peacock Throne.

24/9/1980.Iraq invaded
Iran, making initial territorial gains. But by 1981 these were lost and Iran
occupied some border areas of Iraq. The Iranians could not capture Baghdad
or Basra, despite sending 250,000 men into battle. Iraq probably responded with
poison gas. In 1984 the action switched to the Persian Gulf. Iraq attacked
ships visiting Iranian ports, probably hoping for an Iranian blockade of Iraqi
oil exports, which would have angered the West. Iran attacked ships serving Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia, to deter them from supporting Iraq. Iran suffered more, as
its tanker oil revenues plummeted. By
March 1988 Iranian gains in Iraq had been recaptured and the border was
virtually unchanged; Iran then agreed to a ceasefire.

22/9/1980. Iraqi aircraft attacked Iranian bases after some
weeks of fighting on the Iran-Iraq border. Iraqi troops also entered Iranian
territory.This was the beginning
of the Gulf War; Iraq wanted total control of the Shatt-El-Arab waterway,
for oil exports, but Iran claimed their mutual border ran down the middle of
this waterway.

26/7/1980. The deposed Shah
of Iran died in a Cairo hospital after a long battle with cancer, aged 60.

11//6/1980. A hostage from the US Embassy in Tehran, Richard Queen,
was released due to illness.

5/5/1980. The Iranian Embassy in London was stormed by the SAS to rescue
19 hostages.

30/4/1980. In London, 6 armed men took over the Iranian Embassy, taking 25 people hostage. They threatened to blow
up the embassy if 91 prisoners in Iran were not released. On 5/5/1980 a Special
Air Service (SAS) team stormed the embassy, rescuing the hostages. 4 terrorists
died, another died later, and one was captured.

24/4/1980.The US attempt to rescue the hostages held in Iran, Operation Eagle
Claw, ended in fiasco. President Carter
had to make a statement to the world.90
commandos had taken off under cover of darkness from Pakistan with 8 Sikorsky
helicopters and 6 Hercules transport planes. Three helicopters suffered mechanical
failure in the desert dust of eastern Iran. The mission was abandoned but on
taking off again from the desert 8 American servicemen died when another US
helicopter collided with one of the Hercules planes. The burnt out planes and
the bodies of the soldiers were abandoned where they fell. The Iranians were
jubilant, and the Ayatollah Khalkhali displayed and mutilated
the bodies at a macabre press conference in the Embassy.

7/4/1980,The US severed diplomatic relations with Iran and imposed economic
sanctions, as the hostage crisis, which began on 4/11/1979, continued.

8/3/1980.President Jimmy Carter refused
to apologise for past US actions in Iran
in return for the release of 53 hostages.
See 4/11/1979. On 7/4/1980 the US severed relations with Iran.

22/2/1980.In Kabul, martial law was imposed after violent anti-Soviet
demonstrations.

4/2/1980, Iran elected its first
post-Revolution president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

29/1/1980, The Islamic
Conference of 36 nations condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

15/1/1980. NATO and the Common Market debated whether to boycott the Moscow Olympics after the USSR had invaded Afghanistan, on 27/12/1979.

4/1/1980, Jimmy Carter proclaimed a grain embargo against the USSR,
following its invasion of Afghanistan; the European Commission backed this
embargo.

2/1/1980, US President Jimmy
Carter told the US Senate not to
ratify the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) with the USSR until Soviet
forces withdrew from Afghanistan.

27/12/1979.President Hafizullah of Afghanistan was deposed and executed
in a coup strongly backed by Soviettroops. On 8/1/1980 President Carter described the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as the greatest threat to world peace since
World War Two. Muslim guerrillas were active against the pro-Soviet regime, and
5,000 Soviet troops were stationed in Afghanistan. The USSR feared a spread of Muslim insurgency to the Soviet Union
itself.

24/12/1979,Soviet
troops began an invasion of Afghanistan.

2/12/1979, Iran
adopted a new Islamic constitution.

21/11/1979, Khomeini warned that if the US attacked Iran
the hostages would be killed.

17/11/1979, Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and
Black hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran. However the remaining 53 were to
stand trial for espionage.

4/11/1979. Iranian demonstrators, and 100 Revolutionary
Guards, seized the American Embassy inTehran,
beginning a hostage crisis. 90
personnel, 63 of them Americans, were taken hostage as the return of the Shah
for trial was demanded, see 8/3/1980. On 22/10/1979 the Shah had entered the US for hospital treatment and Iranian students
wanted him extradited to Iran.
On 12/11/1979 the US stopped
all oil imports from Iran.
On 14/11/1979 President Jimmy Carter ordered all Iranian assets within
the US
frozen.

22/10/1979, The deposed Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, went to the USA
for medical treatment, see 4/11/1979.

23/8/1979.In Iran, troops
clashed with Kurdish rebels.

23/7/1979, In Iran, Khomeini banned the broadcasting of music.

3/7/1979, US President Jimmy
Carter signed the first secret directive for aid to be given to
anti-Communist opponents of the Kabul government.

13/5/1979. The Chief of the Central Islamic Revolutionary
Court said that anyone who killed the
Shahof Iran or his family or aides
(all of whom had fled abroad) would be acting on the orders of his court. On
18/5/1979 an Iranian newspaper offered a free
trip to Mecca for anyone who killed the exiled Shah.

7/5/1979. Tehran lowered the minimum age of marriage to 13
for boys and 15 for girls.

1/4/1979, Iranians
voted by a 98% majority to make their country an Islamic Republic; the Shah
was officially deposed.

15/2/1979.In Iran, 4
Iranian army generals were executed by firing squad; two members of the Shah’s
government were executed the following day.

14/2/1979, In Kabul, Muslim militants kidnapped the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs. He was killed the
following day in a gunfight between the kidnappers and the police.

11/2/1979, In Iran,
Ayatollah
Khomeini set up a provisional government.

10/2/1979, The Iranian Army mutinied against its leader and
joined the Iranian Revolution. Khomeini now also controlled the law courts
and government administration.

3/2/1979, Khomeini created the Council of the Iranian
Revolution.

1/2/1979.Ayatollah Khomeinireturned to Iran
after 14 year’s exile in France.

16/1/1979. The Shah of Iranand
Empress Farah fled to Egypt
from Tehran,
following months of riots.

16/12/1978. Civil war loomed in Iran
as the Shah
refused to abdicate.

10/12/1978. In Iran,
two million marched in protest against
the Shah.

5/12/1978.The USSR signed a 20-year friendship treaty with Afghanistan.
See 27/4/1978.

28/11/1978, The Iranian Government banned religious marches.

6/11/1979, As disorder increased in Iran, a military government was appointed.

5/11/1978.Fierce fighting in Tehran; the Prime
Minister, Sharif-Emami,
resigned. The British Embassy in Tehran
was sacked.

31/10/1978. Iranian oil-workers’ strike halved production.

8/9/1978.In Iran, the Shah
imposed martial law in an attempt to quell growing discontent; 122 died and
4,000 were wounded.. This followed demonstrations against the Shah
in which 58 died.General Gholam Ali Oveissi was appointed military governor of Tehran. Reviled as
the ‘butcher of Tehran’ after his brutal response to riots in 1963, he
continued in that pattern. His security forces met a peaceful demonstration in
Jaleh Square with a hail of bullets, an incident known as ‘Black Friday’.

15/5/1978Iranian
students rioted in Tabriz;
troops were called in to quell the disturbances.

11/5/1978.Rioting in Tehran as Muslims called for the
removal of the Shah.

6/5/1978, The UK recognised
the new regime in Afghanistan.

30/4/1978, The Soviet Union
recognised the new regime in Afghanistan.

27/4/1978.A bloody coup overthrew the government of
Afghanistan and replaced it with a pro-Soviet regime. Tanks and Mig-21 fighter planes attacked the
Presidential palace in Kabul as Mohammed Daud was overthrown.
The president and his family was massacred. All public meetings were banned and
martial law imposed indefinitely.

7/1/1978, Riots erupted in the Iranian
city of Qom after a government controlled newspaper made crude accusations
against Khomeini, alleging that he
had spied for the British and written erotic poetry.

19/11/1977, Iranian police broke up a peaceful middle class and student
protest at Ayramehr University, where intellectuals had begun to challenge the
rule of the Shah
through letter writing, pamphlets and poetry readings. Students then protested
on the streets, where they were met by the Savak security forces.

1975, The Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein
of Iraq concluded the Algiers Agreement.
Under its terms, Iraq ceded ceded border areas north of the Shatt el Arab to
iran, and agreed that the Iran-Iraq border should run down the middle of this
waterway, not along the Iranian low-water mark on the north. In return Iran
ceased military assistance to the Kurdish rebeks in northern Iraq. Saddam
Hussein’s subsequent abrogation of this Agreement effectively
started the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88).

17/7/1973, Daoud, supported by the Parcham Party,
ousted his cousin King Mohammed Zabiur Shah, who had rued
Afghanistan since 1933. Daoud proclaimed himself President of the new
Republic of Afghanistan.

26/10/1967.The Shah of Iran
and his wife were crowned in Tehran.

21/3/1958. The Shah of Iran announced on TV that he was divorcing his wife of seven years, Queen Soraya, because she had not given him an heir. She moved to Paris and became an
actress.

24/12/1957, Hamid
Karzai, President of Afghanistan, was born.

28/10/1956, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, was
born.

22/8/1953, The Shah of Iran returned to the
throne and Mossadegh was jailed after a military coup.

22/10/1952, Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Britain.

4/10/1951, The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company removed its personnel from Abadan for
safety reasons.

27/9/1951, Iranian troops occupied the Abadan
oilfields.

23/8/1951, British oil companies and
workers prepared to leave Iran.

5/7/1951, The International Court of
Justice ruled against Iran (see 26/5/1951). US President Truman called for a
compromise.

26/5/1951, Britain appealed to the International Court of Justice over the
Iranian nationalisation of the oil industry. On 5/7/1951 the Court ruled in
Britain’s favour.

19/5/1951, Britain warned Iran against seizing British oil
assets there, 8 Britons died in riots there in April 1951.

30/4/1951. The day after Mohammed Mossadeq took office as Iran’s Prime
Minister, Iran
announced it was nationalising the
Anglo-Iranian oil company, set up in 1901 and covering oil concessions of
some 480,000 square miles (nationalisation took effect on 2/5/1951). In 1911 a
pipeline was built to Abadan
which has since grown as a major oil-refining city. This area was vital from 1914 for fuel supplies to the British Army.

Britain
protested strongly at the nationalisation but evacuated the refineries on
3/10/1951.

19/6/1947, Salman Rushdie was born.

25/4/1946, The USSR
agreed to withdraw its troops from Iran.

15/12/1945. Iranian Azerbaijan declared itself an independent
republic, following a Communist-led revolt there against Tehran in November 1945. On 11/12/1946
Iranian troops re-conquered the province.

22/11/1921.Britain recognised
the independence of Afghanistan, under the Anglo-Afghan Treaty, signed by the
Dobbs Mission in Kabul.

21/2/1921, Reza Khan (born 1878,of the Pahlevan clan), an
officer in the Iranian Army who had risen from the rank of Private to General,
occupied Tehran with 1,200 men. Iran was in chaos after the ravages of World
War One and its ruler Ahmad Shah, the last of the Qajar dynasty, was
young and incompetent,and the cabinet was weak and corrupt. Subsequently known
as Reza Shah
Pahlavi, he modernised the country, organised its transport links,
and retook control of Iran’s finances from foreign investors. His foreign
policy was to play the principal foreign powers in the region, the Soviet Union
and Britain, off against each other. This policy failed when Britain and Russia
became allies in World War Two in 1941. Britain and Russia jointly occupied
Iran in August 1941 so the Soviet war effort could be supplied. Reza Shah
then abdicated so his son, Mohammed Reza Shah, could adapt Iranian
foreign policy to the new situation, and continue the dynasty. Reza Shah
died in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June 1944.

26/10/1919. Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was born.

21/8/1919, Afghanistan became independent.

9/8/1919, Britain guaranteed to preserve the integrity of
Persia.

8/8/1919,The Treaty of Rawalpindi was signed. This ended the Third Afghan War,
which had begun on 3/5/1919.

24/5/1919.Having defeated
Afghan raiders on the Indian border, the British bombed Jalalabad and Kabul.

3/5/1919.Fighting broke out
between Britain and
Afghanistan, The Third Afghan War,
see 8/8/1919.

deposed Ali Shah, the Shah of Persia.
The Russian Army then invaded northern Persia, occupying the city of Tabriz,
ostensibly on behalf of the deposed Shah. They antagonised the Bakhtari. Ali Kuh Khan
replaced the Shah with his son, 12-year-old Ahmad.

23/6/1908, Mohammed Ali
Shah of Persia mounted a successful coup with the help of the
Cossack brigade; he then imposed martial law in Tehran.

26/5/1908.Significant
oil fields were found in Persia (Iran), the first oil strike in the Middle
East.

15/12/1907,
The new Shah of Persia attempted to depose the new liberal Chief Minister.
However, popular protests forced him to reverse this move.

1907, Persian Shah
Muzaffar ud-Din died aged 54 after a weak reign of 11 years. He was
succeeded by his 35-year-old son who reged until 1909 as Mohammed Ali.

13/8/1907, An Anglo-Russian
agreement recognised Afghanistan
as an independent Kingdom; a Republic since 1973.

7/10/1906, The Shah opened the Persian Assembly.

15/5/1903, British Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne announced that
Britain would strongly resist the establishment of any fortified base by
another power on the Persian Gulf. This was aimed at countering expansionist
plans by Russia.

18/8/1902, The Shah of Persia arrived in London on a State
Visit.

1901, The Shah of Persia granted
concessions over 1.2 million square kilometres to oil prospector William Knox
D’Arcy. These concessions were transferred to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909.

20/10/1897, The British put down a
rebellion by Afghan tribes at the Battle of Durgai.

1/5/1896, Nasr-ed-Din, Shah of Persia, was assassinated,
aged 65. He was succeeded by his 43-year-old son, Muzaffar-ed-Din.

1/9/1880, The British were
defeated at the Battle of Kandahar,
Afghanistan.

1/8/1880.The British lifted
the siege of Kandahar, where a
British garrison had been besieged by Afghan rebels. A 10,000 strong relief
force had marched 313 miles, under General Sir Frederick Roberts, in just 23 days.

27/7/1880, Battle of Maiwand, Second Afghan War.

19/10/1879, Afghan Emir Yakub was forced to abdicate. He was
replaced by his cousin, Adb-er-Rahman.

12/10/1879, British forces
captured Kabul.

6/10/1879, Battle of Charasiab, Second Afghan War. British defeated the Afghans.

3/9/1879, Afghan
rebellion against the British. British envoy Sir Louis Cavagnari was assassinated.

4/3/1857, By the Treaty of Paris,
Afghanistan’s independence was recognised by Britain and France, and forced upon Persia.

30/3/1855, Afghan leader Dost Mohammed
signed a peace treaty ending 12 years of hostility with Britain. This
agreement, the Treaty of Peshawar, was intended to thwart a Persian occupation
of Afghanistan.

19/7/1849, Sayid Ali Mohammed, founder of the Bahai
religion, was executed in Persia by order of the Shah.

1848, Persia’s Kajar Shah Mohammed Ali died aged 38, after a
13-year reign during which he has nearly bankrupted the country and almost
precipitated a revolution. He was succeeded by his 17-year-old son, Nasr-ed-Din,
who reigned until 1896. He was assisted, until 1852, by the capable Finance
Minister, Taki
Khan.

18/7/1823, The Treaty of Erzerum was signed, between the Sultan of Ottoman Turkey
and the Qajar Shah of Persia; this Treaty defined their common frontier in
lower Iraq. However the two powers continued to dispute possession of the town
of Muhammara, at the mouth of the Karun River, a disagreement dating from 1812.
In 1847 a second Treaty of Erzerum was signed, giving Muhammara to Persia.

24/10/1813, The
Treaty of Gulistan was signed between Persia and Russia. Persia ceded territory
to Russia, and recognised Russia as having sole right of navigation on the
Caspian Sea. Russia was also granted a say in the succession of the Qajars.

4/5/1807. The Finkenstein
Treaty was signed between France and Persia. The French agreed to military
aid and advice, to assist Persia in expelling the Russians from Georgia. In
return Persia promissed to assist France in any French invasion of British-held
India.

17/6/1797, Agha Mohammad
Khan, Shah of Persia, died.

1787, Tehran became
the capital of Iran under the rule of Agha Mohammed Khan Qajar.

1786, Start of the Qajar
Dynasty in Iran.

1747, The
modern nation of Afghanistan was formed under Ahmad
Shah Durrani, a warlord who secured the independence of the
country from Iran. Ahmad Shah ruled until 1773.

1736, The Persian Safavid
Dynasty, which had endured since 1502, ended with the death of Shah Abbas III,
aged 6. The Turkish Nadir Kuli, who had effectively ruled Persia
for the past decade, now became Nadir Shah and ruled until 1747.

1731, Shah Tahmasp II of Persia died after a brief
reign. He was succeeded by his 8-month-old son, who ruled for 5 years. The end
of his reign marked the end of the Safavid
Dynasty, which had endured since 1502.

1730, Persian Shah Ashtraf was assassinated after a defeat
near Shiraz, en route to Kandahar. He was succeeded by Tahmasp II.

1694, Shah Suleiman of Persia died after a dissolute
reign of 27 years. His 19-year-old son Husein succeeded him, and ruled until 1722.

1629, Abbas I (The Great), Shah of Persia, born
1571, died. He became Shah in 1588, and established a standing army, achieving
greater stability in Persia. From 1598, he recovered Azerbaijan and parts of
Armenia from the Ottoman Turks, and Khurasan from the Uzbeks. He also
transferred the Persian capital from Qazvin to Isfahan.

23/5/1524, Shah
Ismail of Persia died aged 38. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Tahmasp,
aged 10.

23/8/1514, At the
Battle of Chaldiran, Selim I defeated the Persians under Shah Ismail I.

424 BCE, Xerxes
II became King of Persia but was assassinated two months afterwards.
Succeeded by Darius
II, who died in 405 BCE.

424 BCE, Death of Artaxerxes II (ruled 465-424).

465 BCE, Death of Xerxes, King of Persia 485 – 465 BCE (born 519
BCE).

485 BCE, Death of King Darius I, King of Persia 521 – 485 BCE.
He organised the Persian Empire into 20 Satrapies (provinces). He also
introduced economic measures, incuding tax reforms and a common currency across
the Empire, and a standing army. However after his death Persia declined.